This invention concerns a handgrip for an electro-optical diagnostic-device set with a tubularly-shaped battery housing for receiving an energy source (in the form of one or more batteries or a battery accumulator) of various lengths (depending upon need or availability) to energize a lamp, the battery housing having a releasably attached end cover, at one end and, a releasably attached coupling piece for receiving an instrument head such as an otoscope, ophthalmoscope, laryngoscope or the like at the other end.
There are many hand held instruments to examine body surfaces and natural body openings for making medical diagnoses. These instruments have in common, among other things, that they include a small light source, such as an incandescent lamp, for illuminating places to be examined. Particularly because of the desirability of using such devices away from particular facilities, handgrips with batteries therein are often used to energize such instruments. So that each such instrument does not need its own handgrip, coupling pieces between the handgrip and instrument attachments, or accessories, are either standardized or so formed during their manufacture that various attachments can be used on the same grip.
In order to serve the needs and customs of users, such handgrips are usually offered for two or three primary, or normal, battery cells or also for chargeable batteries with two or three cells. Among the so called chargeable grips one must also distinguish between those which must be placed in a charging apparatus and receive their charging supply via outwardly facing contacts, those with coupling plugs to be charged with reduced alternating voltage (for example, in the form of a so called receptacle transformer), and those with a house current plug to be coupled to a power company receptacle.
Despite the standardizing of connections at instrument ends, a large number of various grips, whose measurements are determined by types of batteries used and types of charging employed, are still necessary. Manufacturing and storage, by manufacturers as well as during medical distribution, are correspondingly difficult and expensive. A user must, among other things, acquire a new grip if he wants to change the type of batteries or battery supply used. This is often the case during hospital rounds or during off-site patient visits. If a battery charge of a chargeable grip is thereby prematurely exhausted, there is no possibility of quickly recharging it. A desired chargeable grip can also not be used with primary, or ordinary, battery cells, and vice versa, without taking some steps.
A handgrip for use with an electro-optical diagnostic-device set of the type described in the opening paragraph above is known from CA-A-2 078 644 in which a coupling piece is formed such that it can be adapted to different lengths of two primary cells on the one hand and three cells of an accumulator on the other hand. It comprises a tubular member whose actual coupling member couples with an instrument head on one side and into which an adapter is screwed on the other side. For use with simple non-chargeable batteries, the adapter receives proximally part of a battery and leads a plus pole thereof out of the other side where a terminal pin mounted on the coupling piece makes contact with a foot, or center, contact of a lamp. For use with an accumulator, a transformer and a rectifier are in the adapter. Two male plugs extend into the interior of the tubular member for being guided into a receptacle, while at another, proximal side, a central contact extends outwardly, on which a central pole, or terminal, of the accumulator lies. A third embodiment of the adaptor allows coupling to an external charging device having a transformer and a rectifier via a reduced-voltage coupling cable.
In the known device set a structural length of handgrip is relatively great while in each case the male plugs of the second embodiment must be received in the coupling piece. The structural length of this member is for other energy sources, for example non-chargeable batteries, excessive. Further, various adaptors having substantial structural differences must be held in readiness. This known handgrip finally fails completely when accumulators as well as batteries are to be used whose lengths deviate from those of the design.
It is an object of this invention to provide a handgrip for diagnostic-device sets which allows one to simplify and reduce manufacturing and storing costs of known handgrips of the type of this invention.